Facebook Is Facing Its First Fine Over the Cambridge Analytica Privacy Scandal

The ICO also announced it proposes to bring criminal action against SCL Elections, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica (CA), for allegedly failing to comply with an enforcement notice and allow access to the data it held.

The UK's ICO - aka the Information Commissioner's Office - on Wednesday ruled Facebook had twice broken British data protection laws - by failing to safeguard people's information, and by failing to be properly transparent about how that info can be used.

Facebook faces a £500,000 ($665,000) fine from the UK's data protection watchdog, the ICO, for failing to protect netizens' info nor tell them how their data would be harvested by apps.

Facebook, along with consultancy Cambridge Analytica, has been the focus of the investigation since February when evidence emerged that an app was used to harvest the data of 50 million Facebook users across the world.

And U.K. regulators pledged additional scrutiny of Facebook to come.

"We are at a crossroads". The ICO wants parties to undergo compulsory audits of their use of personal data, including the purchase of marketing lists and lifestyle information to help target voters.

Denham also called for the government to introduce a statutory code of practice for the use of personal data in political campaigns, adding that "this can not be at the expense of transparency, fairness and compliance with the law".

"Fines and prosecutions punish the bad actors, but my real goal is to effect change and restore trust and confidence in our democratic system", she said.

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"Everyone from social media firms, political parties and data brokers seem to be taking advantage of new technologies and micro-targeting techniques with very limited transparency and responsibility towards voters", she said. The office finds that Facebook lacked the privacy protections necessary to catch Cambridge Analytica before it was too late.

But the ICO said because of the timing of the incidents involved in its inquiry, the penalties were limited to those available under previous legislation. "We're reviewing the report and will respond to the ICO soon".

"We must change this fast as no-one should win elections using illegally obtained data", she said, adding: "We will now assess what can we do at the European Union level to make political advertising more transparent and our elections more secure".

It has also said that, while it pitched for work with campaign group Leave.EU ahead of the Brexit referendum in Britain in 2016, it did not end up doing any work on the campaign.

A Russian Internet company with links to the Kremlin was among the firms Facebook gave an extension allowing them to collect data on unsuspecting users - even after the practice was supposedly stopped, CNN reported Tuesday.

This implies a potential compensation bill of between A$300 million and A$3 billion.